Foolish Lack of Progress
Question
Dear Sir,
I have benefited much from your posts but I am an unworthy practitioner.
Once every few days or weeks or months, a wave of confusion/emotion/lust rides over me and I inevitably break my practice. I am young and poor. I do not know what to do. I do not know of my destiny. In anger and confusion, the mind turmoil becomes so great that I resort to spilling seed
1) What should be done? Will honest practice lead one to discover that which he is meant to do in this birth?
2) Due to circumstances I have very close relations with some of the most wealthy and powerful individuals in the world. Seeing their lifestyles makes me jealous, bitter, and anxious. It is a very negative feeling. No matter how ardently I remind myself of maya, do sadhana, ruminate on the false nature of flesh, etc, the sight of a luxurious building or a charming young girl causes the calm mind to immediately speed up and become instable. Why! I am ashamed at how little progress I have made and have no right to even call myself an *aspiring* brahmachari given how flimsy my grasp of the mind is.
Answer
These reactions are encountered by all Brahmachari-s during the initial years of practice. Later, after much advancement when Yogi has negated most past Samskara-s, the mind rests naturally in the self and delusion does not come into the picture.
Do your Sadhana with surrender to the Lord and hold on to the self through constant meditation. Things will stabilize.
ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)